Speaking at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Pasadena, the cast revealed that the episodes - which will be released all at once - should not be thought of as season four and should instead be regarded as 'Act 1' of a storyline that would ultimately lead up to the much-touted Arrested Development movie.

"It was mislabelled early on," Bateman said. "[It's] basically just the first act of what we hope to continue and complete in a movie, which would be Act 2 and Act 3. These episodes set that up. One does not work without the other.

"There is certainly a satisfying conclusion to these episodes, if for some unfortunate reason the movie does not happen.

"But [the episodes and the movie] are all meant to work within each other as a hybrid package of Arrested Development stuff."

Creator Mitch Hurwitz went on to tease the new format, and insisted that there is a correct order in which to watch the episodes, reports TVLine.

"The only way we could get everyone together for what we'll call, loosely, an anthology series, was to dedicate each episode to a different character's point of view," the showrunner explained.

"That became a fun, entertaining challenge, because we started finding out that the stories would intersect... So, you'll see a scene in one [episode], and then you'll see a scene again from the other perspective [in another episode] where you'll get all this new information."

He explained: "If you watch it in the order that we prescribe, you'll get to, say, episode four and realize that's why [a character] did that in episode one."